Ask A Genius 1508: Alien Earth’s Eye Midge and the AI Gap in Sci-Fi
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/09/11
Does Alien Earth’s Eye Midge hint at a shared Xenomorph ecosystem—and expose sci-fi’s blind spot on ubiquitous AI?
Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner dissect Alien Earth’s “Eye Midge” (Tryptomaniacus ocellus), a plausible parasitic controller that hijacks a sheep’s eye and brain—perhaps echoing memories from a prior human host. They note a shared ecosystem with the eyeless Xenomorph, where acid-blooded “blood bugs,” parasitism, and other traits explain apex evolution. Unseen species like the Orchid/Plumbacar and a flier may broaden the biology. They argue classic sci-fi underestimates ubiquitous AI; Alien’s retro aesthetic limits networked intelligence. Compared with smartphones outrunning Trek’s tricorders, near-future authors (Stephenson, Doctorow, Stross) struggle as reality sprints ahead. Mountainhead’s AI-amplified chaos feels dated; 2040 demands extrapolation.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Right, so did you see the clip of the Eye Midge—the Tryptomaniacus ocellus or T. ocellus? It is basically an eyeball monster, an eyeball with tentacles. Moreover, while it looks fantastic, it actually has a plausible biological hypothesis in a way.
Rick Rosner: Yeah, it has an obvious mode of action. We do not know its means of reproduction yet, but at least we have seen how it functions.
Moreover, with the alien creatures in Alien Earth, you get to learn parts of their biology pretty quickly. I hypothesize that when the lamb stood after being taken over by the Eye Midge, it was because the creature had previously taken over a human body on the crashed ship. It was still running off that memory. That was foreshadowing, but also it is brilliant, so it had to be deceptive. Standing upright may have been a mimicry of what it had already seen.
Jacobsen: I like that. For readers, we are talking about Alien Earth episode four. Unlike the earlier Alien movies, this series introduces five different terrifying species. We have only met three so far, but we got to see the Eye Midge actually take over a sheep by leaping onto its face, plucking out one of its eyes, inserting its own eye structure into the socket, and then sending its tentacles into the brain to control the host. For a moment, the sheep even stands up like a man.
Interesting fact: the Eye Midge is suggested to originate from the same planet where the Xenomorph was found. If that is true, it could explain why the Xenomorph does not have visible eye sockets.
The Xenomorph has a smooth, domed head with no obvious eyes. The other organisms in this ecosystem may demonstrate how the Xenomorph evolved into the apex predator. For example, the “blood bugs” have acid blood, the Eye Midge uses parasitism, and others may add traits that highlight why the Xenomorph is supreme.
Rosner: We have not met all of them yet. There is one called the Orchid—or maybe Plumbacar—a plant-like organism with a turtle-like mass. Another might have flight capability. Those will probably expand the picture.
Moreover, when considered in a broader sci-fi context, it is fascinating. Alien came out in 1979. Star Trek dates back to 1966, while the first Star Wars novel was published in 1976, and Blade Runner was released in 1982. Which means our most iconic science fiction worlds are several decades out of date in their depictions of the future.
Alien Earth is set in 2120. Our friend Chris Cole estimates that by 2100, there could be a trillion AIs, ranging from superintelligent systems to semi-smart devices—such as chipped sidewalk squares tracking pedestrians, or massive networks of cameras. London, for example, already has surveillance cameras on nearly every corner. However, they are not yet fully integrated into an AI web.
However, the Alien universe, being imagined in 1979, has very few AIs. You have synths, such as Timothy Olyphant’s character, essentially a robot with a synthetic brain, and the six children whose minds were transferred into manufactured adult bodies. In the show, one character even refers to them as AIs. However, otherwise, there is not much.
There are cameras and screens, and some synthetics can connect wirelessly to networks. Still, the world has not been transformed the way we expect the real future will be. The showrunner has stated that he wanted to maintain the design aesthetic of the original films, which is why the world appears more analog.
Compare that to Star Trek: in the 23rd century, characters used tricorders—handheld devices with some functionality similar to today’s smartphones. However, now, less than 60 years after the show aired, our phones vastly surpass what they imagined. Ironically, tech in a world set hundreds of years in the future looks weaker than what we already carry in our pockets.
So anyway, all our science fiction is obsolete. If they wanted to make something more true to an extrapolation of the present, they could go with Neal Stephenson. However, even his works—The Diamond Age (1995) and Snow Crash(1992)—are now about 25–30 years old. At one point, George Clooney owned the rights to The Diamond Age, but nothing ever came of it.
You’ve got Cory Doctorow writing near-future fiction, but it usually takes place only five or ten years from now. Then you’ve got Charles Stross, who writes across different modes. For example, he has a series where Cthulhu-like entities and the world of magic blend into our own world—the boundary between them erodes, and demons begin to break through. That’s not extrapolation of the future so much as an alternate-universe setup. However, he has also written some convincingly done near-future science fiction.
I was reading two books of a trilogy where a dark lord, a Cthulhu-like figure, becomes Prime Minister of the UK. His court is a mix of demons and humans who haven’t pissed him off yet. But when I looked for the third book, Stross said he’d abandoned it because the real-world future had already caught up with his imagined future. That shows how hard it is to write convincing near-future or medium-future fiction. Most of what we see in movies and television is extrapolated from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
Which leaves an opportunity to write a convincing world just 15 years from now—where AI is actively destabilizing everything.
There’s a recent film called Mountainhead that takes place, for the most part, in the present, perhaps a year in the future. In it, four or five tech billionaires are competing for global dominance while on vacation at an alpine resort. Meanwhile, AI is driving global chaos by releasing fake news clips and stories designed to maximize outrage and spark riots. That’sone plausible near-future scenario. However, even that already feels somewhat dated—AI-generated fake news is practically yesterday’s story now. People are already aware of the danger.
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